Jennine Capo Crucet’s “Make Your Home Among Strangers,” is a novel set during the Elian Gonzalez conflict of the late 90’s. A young woman, Lizet, finds herself coming home for Thanksgiving from her first year at college at the same time as Elian arrives into Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood. The main conflict in the novel is Lizet coming to terms with being the first in her family to attend college. She’s struggling not just with homesickness, but with culture shock, academic rigor, implicit bias, and […]
A truly wonderful book hangover.
Have you ever met a book and fallen so deeply in love that finishing is a kind of regret? Welcome to Make Your Home Among Strangers, which gave me a major book hangover and inspired me to plan my fall semester courses, a task that had me dragging me feet for a few weeks. The book is moving, but it had special poignancy for my profession, and it inspired me to do and be better for my students. Jennine Capó Crucet’s novel is set in […]